Pole Star
by lairy fights
Summary: [RonPansy] [WIP] [preHBP 6th year] When Draco drops Pansy like a hot coal, her quest for payback leads her into the most unexpected of company, and the looming conflict in the wizarding world outside threatens to tear Hogwarts apart from the inside.
1. One

It was, very possibly, the worst day of Pansy Parkinson's entire life.

"Look, Pansy, it's not as though you hadn't expected it," Draco had said, sounding as cold and haughty and unforgiving as always, a bit of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. "Father just doesn't think you're marriage material."

Pansy had, of course, shrieked and cried and thrown things, very nearly knocking an expensive and ancient vase off the mantle of the fireplace in the Slytherin common room, and shattering a lovely living glass sculpture of a dragon across the floor in front of Draco's favorite chair, the plush velvet one near the dormitory stairs. It was then that he'd advanced on her, hand raised and face contorted in fury, and she'd turned and fled up the stairs to her dormitory for sanctuary.

She'd stayed in her bed, curtains drawn tightly shut, until dinner, when her dorm mates, Millicent Bulstrode, Tracey Davis, and Daphne Greengrass, had come into the room, bustling about and thumping around and discussing the afternoon's Quidditch match (during which, Pansy was pleased to note, Gryffindor had lost rather spectacularly to Hufflepuff) and making it generally impossible to wallow in her sorrows. She'd flung the curtains open, snatched a pack of Gauloises out of her trunk, and stormed out the door, slamming it behind her and heading for the roof of the Astronomy tower, determined to rid herself of all her bad Chi (or whatever that new-age American-hippie tree-hugging bullshit her mother practiced was called) and simply drown in self-love.

This, of course, was much easier said than done. She had chain-smoked at least twelve cigarettes in the past hour, and still could not think of a single positive aspect that would make Pansy Parkinson a desirable, fun, and intriguing person to be around.

Truth be told, she _hadn't_ expected it. She'd thought, naively, like most young girls, that she and Draco would be together forever; they would marry straight out of school in a gigantic pureblood wedding that would be the social event of the season, and would bear lots of little blonde-haired, pointy-faced, pug-nosed babies, all of whom would grow into respectable members of the pureblooded community and would continue to build the Malfoy name into an even greater empire than it already was. She would be the perfect example of a Malfoy wife: charming, elegant, and _always _dressed in the latest Wizarding fashions from Paris and Milan, lounging around on plush Greek chaises during the day and directing the house elves' preparations regarding whatever gala was planned for that evening.

That was now, she realized despondently, gone forever. She was not, as the elder Malfoy had so clearly pronounced, _marriage material_. She was Pansy Parkinson, pureblooded but not Old Money, the kind that the Malfoys respected. Her father had made a respectable name for the family, building it up from scratch with his ties inside Gringott's, and creating a sizeable fortune to go alongside it. This was, apparently, not enough for a _Malfoy. _Richard Parkinson had sat at the same board meetings as Lucius Malfoy, their wives exchanged recipes and sometimes house elves, and while Draco and Pansy had known each other nearly since birth, they were still not on the same rung of the social ladder.

"I shouldn't be bitter," Pansy said aloud, though even as she voiced it her face contorted with anger and regret and, most definitely, a sizeable amount of bitterness.

Perhaps it was the way she presented herself, she mused. She was rather prone to emotional displays and fits of temper, ones rather similar to the one she'd just thrown in the common room, actually. She had never been one to box her feelings away inside for everyone else's sake, like she supposed a true pureblooded Lady would. She enjoyed the attention of misbehaving far too much—she veritably _basked _in it, like a fire salamander dropped in the hot coals of an inferno. She was not really graceful or poised, either, though she could fake it on occasion, as she had proved during fourth year at the Yule Ball and during the Malfoy's annual Christmas party the following year, when Draco had first kissed her.

She was dismayed to realize she was crying, and bitterly wiped the tears off her face. It was just not _fair_, really. It wasn't as though she had loved him, after all—in pureblood society, love was something to be frowned upon, to ignore and push away and despise. Love was, in most circumstances, a filthy word; to be _properly_ used only whilst describing manor décor and perhaps that lovely little chateau in Switzerland that was simply _divine_ for the holidays last year, never to be used in the context of another human being. But there had been a fondness there, the kind that comes with knowing someone from childhood, comes from play dates and dinner parties and games on the Junior Pureblood Quidditch League, team seventeen.

Pansy grimaced and ground the cigarette out on the turret next to her, leaning back against the cold stone and wiping the tears off her face. There was a time for reminiscing, she mused, but now was not the time. She was a Parkinson, and that meant dignity, pride, self-sufficiency, and above all, a bitch-slap of retribution and bloody vengeance for those foolish enough to think of using humiliation as a weapon. The time for reminiscing would come once she had utterly and completely destroyed Draco Malfoy from the ground up, when she was laughing in his face as he sobbed on the floor, begging for forgiveness and to be taken back. Then, she thought, she would have the proper memories to reminisce about.

XXXXX

Elsewhere in the castle, Ron Weasley was furious. He was livid with quivering, violent rage, the kind that made the blood flow like quicksilver and the manly testosterone (inherent in all seventeen-year-old boys) crash and thunder like the wrath of Zeus. He was, he realized, seeing red, and for some reason, he wanted very much to rip a small, furry sort of animal to shreds with his bare hands. Losing the Quidditch match had been bad enough, but that bloody row with Hermione had been the cherry on top of it all.

Stubborn, she had called him. A "pig-headed arse" (in _exactly_ so many words) and a "stupid, ignorant, whinging sod". He had of course flown into a fit of rage, and would have properly decapitated Nearly-Headless Nick during a particularly vicious gesture with a carving knife had the ghost still been living. Hermione had then called him reckless and violent, and flounced out of the hall in a huff.

_And really_, he mused angrily, _where does she get off calling _me_ stubborn? Wouldn't know 'defeat' if it kicked her in the bloody teeth._

His day, in retrospect, could have been better.

As he stalked the darkened halls, his Prefect badge gleaming merrily in the scant torchlight, he realized that what he needed above and beyond anything else was some fresh air. Ron had always been an outside person, preferring to frolic around in the Burrow garden until the latest hours of the evening than inside the house, and the stuffy confines of the stone castle were making his head spin. He changed direction abruptly, heading for the East wing of the castle, and the height and freedom of the Astronomy tower.

He should have realized, he supposed, when the portrait that gave access to the tower was, for once, awake. He perhaps should have realized when he kicked the trapdoor open without having to charm the lock off. And, he thought, he _definitely _should have realized the moment the smell of Muggle cigarettes hit his nostrils, but Ron had never been exactly bright, and was properly shocked when, climbing onto the roof, he discovered someone else was already sitting on the ledge. _His _ledge, his favorite spot, where you could see all across the grounds and could keep a proper eye on the Quidditch pitch, where it was never windy and always just a little bit warm and where the sunlight always left a last golden glow over the parapets when it set.

He stood at the base of the trapdoor for a moment, gaping. How _dare_ this intruder sit on _his _ledge, taking up _his _space, and smoke those foul Muggle things? For all that Mr. Weasley loved Muggles, there were some things Ron could do without.

And who _was _this intruder, anyway, this invader of privacy? Ron stood staring for a moment, still in angry shock. It was a girl, he realized after a moment. A small girl, petite and rather slender under the lines of her blouse. She had short black hair, and something about the hard angle of her jaw he could see was familiar, like waking up from a dream you can't quite remember.

He cast around, searching for something, _anything_, and his eyes lit upon the discarded school jumper on the floor, the crest barely peeking out from beneath the folds. A flicker of recognition crossed his face as the tiny snake's head winked up at him, and he looked up, face contorting in anger.

"You… what are you doing here!" He sputtered, coherence failing him. "You can't… you're not… Get _out_!"

Pansy laughed harshly, not bothering to turn around. "Righteous Gryffindor rage. Splendid."

Her voice was thick, and Ron realized she'd been crying. He felt a pang of remorse—Mrs. Weasley had always taught him crying girls were to be consoled, but she couldn't possibly have meant Pansy Parkinson and the haze of smoke that surrounded her. It smelled disgusting, and was sufficient reminder of exactly why he had such a compelling urge to push her off the edge of the tower.

"What are you _doing_ here?" he demanded angrily, gripping the rusty handrail of the stairs.

"I could ask the same of _you_," she said nastily, flicking little orange sparks off the tip of her cigarette. "Don't you have some celebrating to do? Oh, _wait_." Her tone was mocking, and Ron bristled.

"Shut it, Parkinson," he growled, taking a menacing step towards her back. "You're still behind us for the Cup anyway."

"Oh yes, but at least we didn't lose to _Hufflepuff_," she said, breathing in more of the foul smoke. Ron fought back an urge to cough.

"They have a very good line-up this year," Ron defended, crossing his arms. It was actually rather windy up on the roof, and he wished he'd brought his cloak. He couldn't imagine how Pansy was feeling, sitting on the ledge in just her blouse. "Aren't you _cold_?" he asked, before he could stop himself.

"Why?" she asked scathingly. "Going to lend me your jumper?"

He could tell, somehow, even in the darkness, even though she was facing away, that she was rolling her eyes at him.

"Sod this," he muttered, viciously kicking an abandoned telescope aside and starting back down the stairs.

"No," she called out, as his shoulders were disappearing through the trapdoor. "I'm not cold."

She turned then, and looked at him, and he looked up at her. Her eyes were tiny and dark and there were still lines of tears on her cheeks, and he felt something, something odd, something different. It passed between them, dancing in their eyes, and he was unnerved.

"Right then," he said, blinking uneasily. "'Night."

She nodded, and turned away, holding the glowing end of the cigarette away from her face, staring off over the grounds.

He disappeared through the trapdoor, suppressing the urge to slip the padlock back on and close it tightly, instead carefully placing it on the table near the ladder as he exited the portrait hole.

Above him, unseeing, Pansy smiled into the dark, mind still set on Draco's revenge. He would get what was coming to him, that was for sure, and he would rue the day he ever even _thought _about breaking Pansy Parkinson's heart.


	2. Two

Pansy awoke the next morning to the new (and especially obnoxious) Weird Sisters tune, being blasted at full volume right beside her head. She groaned, and flipped her pillow over her head, wishing it would all just go away. Millicent Bulstrode had a terrible speaking voice, raspy and deep and manly and not at all pleasant to listen to, and her singing voice was even worse.

"Millicent," Pansy said after a minute, realizing the music was not going to go away any time soon, "It is Saturday. It is," she lifted the pillow from her head long enough to check her watch, and moaned, shoving the pillow back over head as she continued, "Seven o'clock in the morning. It is _far_ too early to be listening to _anything_, especially not the Weird Sisters. Especially not loudly. And _especially _not," she added, sitting up and hurling her pillow at the Wizarding wireless, which fell off Tracey's dresser with a satisfying crunch, the song immediately cutting off, "When you are _singing_."

Millicent gave her a dirty look, picking the wireless off the floor and looking at it forlornly.

"Pansy, you've _broken_ it," she grunted, glaring.

"_Good_," Pansy said viciously, kicking off her blankets and sitting up. "Now maybe you'll buy a new one that _won't_ sound as if it's being digested by angry crups."

Millicent sulked, setting the wireless back on Tracey Davis' dresser and storming out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Pansy rolled her eyes.

"Today's going to be _pleasant_," She muttered, standing up and retrieving her pillow from the floor. She tossed it onto her bed and sighed.

She had been having a lovely dream, one that didn't involve Draco Malfoy breaking her heart in front of the entire common room. It had, in fact, involved Draco Malfoy sobbing for her to take him back, in front of the entire _school_, while she laughed and demanded he kiss her feet again. His hair had been properly disheveled, and he'd looked a right mess.

She frowned, taking her hairbrush from her nightstand and yanking it through her hair angrily, viciously ripping through the hapless tangles. Tragically, the events of the previous night had _not_ been only a dream, and she really _had_ been shamed and ridiculed before the whole of Slytherin. Her feet were still tragically unlavished with kisses, she was still Draco Malfoy's cast-off, and his hair was, most likely, still in perfect order, while hers looked as though large sewer rats had nested in it.

It really just was not fair.

She sighed again, and, after destroying one last, sobbing wreck of a knot, put her brush back in her nightstand and began to ready for the day. This particular day, she decided, would require extra care. She must look perfect, every hair in place, every eyelash perfectly lengthened, every _thread_ of her uniform perfectly pressed. Draco Malfoy would rue the day he had let her go.

She showered and changed quickly, brushing her teeth with an alarming ferocity and charmed her hair dry afterwards, performing her ritual cosmetic spells with deadly accuracy. Before long, she was immaculately groomed and dressed, ready to face the most likely horrifying day ahead. She slipped her feet into her mary-janes and buckled them resolutely, standing up and brushing her hair out of her face. Before leaving the room, she studied herself critically in the mirror on the back of the door, hands on her hips.

All right, so she would never be the prettiest girl at Hogwarts. She was short and skinny, lacking really anything in the way of curves. Sure, she _had_ breasts, but they were just sort of… _there_; they didn't do anything fantastic. All right, so they weren't as completely nonexistent as Millicent's, but they definitely weren't voluptuous mounds of sex appeal, like Daphne's. And her hips were really just hips, nothing special. They didn't sway when she walked (unless she consciously focused on it, and then she just looked silly) and they weren't curvy and padded or really _anything._ Her hair was nice enough, she supposed, shiny and straight and fairly thick and perfectly suited to the fringed bob she wore it in, but it framed a too-sharp face, all hard angles and angry frown lines. Her eyebrows (perfectly shaped, thank you very much) were naturally thick and dark and required _far_ too much effort to maintain, she thought, and they only served to highlight her eyes, which were a boring hazel and a little too small for her face. Her nose was the bane of her existence, it was too small and too upturned and made her face seem altogether too harsh. Her lips, like the rest of her face, were pale and sharp, but at least full enough they set off her (slightly pointed) chin nicely and balanced her face into some semblance of prettiness.

Pansy frowned slightly, applied one last coat of lipstick, and flounced out of the dormitory, slamming the door behind her as she headed up the stairs to the common room.

Walking along the dungeon toward the stairs to the first floor, Pansy's mind was miles away. What would await her when she reached the Great Hall? Would her housemates take pity on her? Would they shun her? When Draco dropped something, he dropped it _hard_ and usually on its arse. Pansy knew this, and felt a little twisting squeeze deep in her stomach as she climbed the stairs to the first floor, turning and making her way to the Great Hall.

A suit of armor leered at her as she passed, and she rolled her eyes, smoothing her skirt compulsively as she stood to the side of the Great Hall.

_Here goes,_ she thought, walking through the giant oak doors, chin held high.

The Slytherin table was barely half-full, most likely owing to the fact that it was Saturday, and most of the students were still having a lie-in, sound asleep in their beds. Pansy slid along the wall and took a seat between Millicent, who grunted amiably, apparently having forgiven or at least forgotten the mishap with the wireless, and Daphne, who was discussing the caloric value of toast with Tracey, who was seated across the table. Pansy felt cool relief wash over her as Daphne patted her hand with a sympathetic smile, and she smiled back tightly.

Pity, Pansy decided, though not the most favorable emotion with which to be viewed, was much better than distaste or maliciousness, and she supposed she could have gotten off far worse. She took a blueberry scone from the basket in front of her, and began to butter it, staring across the room absentmindedly.

XXXXX

Across the Hall, Ron was seated in his usual place between Hermione and Harry, shoveling cornflakes into his mouth dully, not quite awake.

He had been up late the previous night, wandering around for hours after leaving the Astronomy Tower. He had ended up on the fifth floor around one o'clock in the morning, fighting off a rather large Victorian wardrobe with a mean streak a mile wide before giving up and finally going to bed, where he'd laid tossing and turning for another two hours, falling into a fitful sleep near three-thirty.

He wasn't exactly sure why he was up so early on a Saturday. It wasn't as if he had Quidditch practice to prepare for, the next practice wasn't until Monday. He imagined it most likely had something to do with the large and criminally dusty tome Hermione had propped up in front of her. She kept making little sounds of discontent as her eyes scanned the page, flickering back and forth too fast to keep track of as she read.

"Hermione," Ron mumbled, missing his mouth with his spoon, "you're giving me a headache. Can't you just _eat_ at breakfast, like a normal person?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, and kept reading. "Honestly, Ron, it's not as though I'm disturbing you."

Another great cloud of dust flew out of the book as she turned the page violently, and Ron yelped, covering his porridge with his napkin.

"You _are_ disturbing me," he argued, flapping his arms wildly to dispel the flurries. "My food is going to be _covered_ in a moment, and all that dust is going up my _nose_!" As if to prove a point, Harry let out an enormous, body-wracking sneeze next to him, and Ron beamed. "See? You're giving _Harry_ allergies."

"It's a bit much, Hermione," Harry said apologetically, blinking away water from his eyes.

Hermione scowled. "Fine." She got up from the table in a huff, slamming the book shut, causing another storm of gleefully cackling dust mites to fly across the table.

"Hermione –" Ron started, but went into a fit of coughing before he could finish as the tiny particles lodged themselves in his windpipe. Harry pounded him on the back, and continued eating his eggs.

"Right," Ron said, once he'd recovered. "I'm going to finish my Defence essay." He stood up and climbed over the bench, stomping out of the hall in a huff.

XXXXX

"And so," Daphne was saying, giggling wildly, "he says, 'Oh, is that your tie, then?' and I just sort of nodded and kept _looking_ at him, unable to even say a word!"

Pansy grinned weakly. "So what did your Mum say?"

Daphne let out a shriek of laughter, causing Pansy to wince. "She said, 'Well, he seems like a nice boy, but I just don't like the way he was looking at you'!"

Millicent let out a barking laugh, and Pansy saw Draco take a seat at the table a little farther down. She felt suddenly ill, unable to eat another bite.

"I'm going to go lie down," she said, rising from the table. "I'll see you later."

Millicent nodded, and Daphne, seeing Draco, waved sympathetically, before turning back to the table to continue her story.

Pansy forced herself not to roll her eyes, and swept out of the hall, intent on finding herself anywhere but there.


	3. Three

There came in a time in every girl's life, Pansy mused, when all the cigarettes and moping in the world would fail to be any help in the valiant fight against the inner ragings of being brutally and cruelly scorned by pointy blonde boyfriends. Luckily for her, this was not that time, and as she sat at the top of her favorite pine tree, the wind blowing gently through the branches, she was quite a bit more at peace with the world than she had been the day before.

She sighed contentedly, and flicked the ashes into the breeze, taking a deep drag. She realized that yes, she would eventually have to stop chain-smoking Gauloises and climb back down to the relative insanity of the social whirlwind that was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but now was not the time to think of such things. She leaned back against the trunk of the tree, staring out over the grounds. If she squinted just right, she could see the Quidditch pitch, where Ravenclaw was holding practice.

She inhaled again, and smiled slightly. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad, after all.

"What the _Hell_?"

Then again...

She squinted down through the branches, where, thirty or so feet below, Ron Weasley was straddling a low-hanging branch, looking up at her with an expression she could only describe as royally pissed off.

"_Grand_," She muttered to herself, flicking the dying butt of her cigarette away from the tree and lighting another with the tip of her wand. "Just what I needed."

A minute or so later, Ron had made his way up to her, and clung to a branch three feet below her, looking absolutely furious.

"What are you _doing_ in _my_ tree?" He demanded angrily, brushing a stray bit of hair out of his eyes. It was getting far too long to be anything but unruly, she noted.

"This is _not_ your tree, Weasley," she said, putting an arm down for support.

"Like Hell it isn't!" He climbed up another branch, until he was eye level with her. "I've been climbing this tree since first year!"

"Yeah, well, I've been climbing it since I used to come visit my older sister," she retorted, blowing smoke in his face.

He coughed, looking furious. "You're a bloody liar, that's what you are!"

"You're right, I haven't got a sister. Get out of my tree!" She demanded, clinging to the trunk and stepping up so that she was standing on her branch, still delicately grasping the cigarette between two fingers.

"It is _not your tree_!" Ron roared, climbing yet higher.

"Eat shit, Weaselby!" Pansy shot back, deftly inserting the cigarette between her lips and continuing to climb.

"_Get out of my tree, Parkinson_!"

Ron climbed swiftly after her, and she realized with consternation that his long and gangling limbs, instead of hindering him, enabled him to climb much faster than she ever would have imagined. She swore bitterly, and continued upward.

A particularly spirited gust of wind shook the tree just then, causing it to sway back and forth merrily, and Pansy shrieked, slipping off the branch she'd just stepped onto and biting her cigarette clear in half. She dropped several feet, narrowly avoiding a rather nasty looking broken twig, before Ron, in a stunning display of Quidditch-honed reflexes, grabbed her around the waist, hauling her back against the tree and away from mortal peril.

"Are you all right?" he asked, face white. He was still grasping her waist, his long fingers digging into her side.

She composed herself, brushing her hair away from her face and spitting out the end of the poor, mangled Gauloise.

"I'm _fine_," she said, pulling away from Ron angrily. "Get off!"

Ron looked hurt for a moment, but it was gone in a second, replaced with annoyance and anger. "Well pardon _me_ for saving your life, then."

"You didn't _save my life_," she shot back, glaring.

He looked at her in amazement. "You really are a compulsive liar, you know that?"

She sighed. "I really am."

Still grasping the trunk of the tree in a death hold, she fumbled in her breast pocket for another cigarette, drawing one out and bringing it to her lips, noting with annoyance that her hands were shaking. She turned to face Ron, and he looked away quickly, flushing crimson to the tips of his ears.

"Oh what _now_," she said in annoyance. "Embarrassed about your little bit of heroism, are you?"

He went ever redder, and continued looking away. "No, it's… Your, err, your blouse's come undone a bit," he said.

She looked down, and indeed, the top three buttons of her white oxford had popped open, and her lacy red bra was making a mad dash for freedom.

"Oh _Hell_," she muttered, cigarette dangling from her lips. She buttoned her blouse one-handed, still not letting go of the tree. "You can look now, Weasley."

He turned to her, still a deep shade of pink. "Errr. Right."

She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not _stupid_, you know," Ron burst out, looking angry again.

She gave him a Look. "…What?"

"You. Rolling your eyes at me. As if I'm some sort of idiot, just because I've the decency to be _embarrassed _when some bint goes about flashing her underthings. That doesn't make me _stupid_, that makes _you_ a bloody tart!"

She gaped at him, furious.

"I am _not_ a _bint_!"

"Could've fooled _me_," Ron muttered, glaring off over the grounds.

"Look, _Weasley_," she began, jabbing a finger at him. "If you hadn't come stomping up here in the first place – "

"I was not _stomping_!"

She ignored him. "If you hadn't come _stomping up here in the first place_, none of this would ever even have happened. So don't get all on me about being some sort of mad tart. This is your ownfault!"

He knocked her hand away, face burning, and they watched as the cigarette she had been grasping fell to the ground some fifty feet below. "Maybe if you hadn't been in _my_ tree to begin with, you wouldn't have _looked _like a mad tart!"

They stood there, glaring at each other. Ron was awkwardly holding on to two smaller branches as he balanced on a larger one a foot or so below Pansy, who was holding the trunk of the tree in a death grip as she did her best to look dignified with sap in her hair as she stood on one of the thicker branches.

"Fine," she said coolly, brushing her hair away from her face with all the dignity she could muster. "Fine. Have your bloody tree, then. I'm _so_ bloody sorry for _tarting it up_!" She started down the tree, but had only stepped down a foot or so when she felt Ron's hand on her arm.

"No, err, stay. I'm sorry," he said, helping pull her back up. "You can stay, it's your tree as well, I suppose, and it's only fair…"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's fair because you saw my _brassiere_?"

He blushed, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Erm... yes?"

She glared for a moment more, before shrugging, and sitting down on the same branch as Ron. "All right, fine." She pulled another cigarette out of the package, noting with dismay she was running out. She would have to pull another carton out of the bottom of her trunk soon. She sighed, and pulled her wand out of its hiding place in her sock, lighting the tip of the cigarette.

Ron made a face. "Those are disgusting, Parkinson." He coughed waved a hand about, trying to air the smoke away from his face. He frowned and re-adjusted on the branch, dangling his long legs off the side.

Pansy puffed daintily at the cigarette, holding it between her long, thin fingers, which were still trembling slightly. "They're not all that bad. They do wonders for the nerves, you know…" She grinned devilishly, and held it out to him. "Want to try?"

"No! Get it out of my face!" He pushed her hand away, looking scandalized.

Pansy rolled her eyes, biting back a grin. "Come on, just a little puff!" She waved it at him again. Gryffindor-baiting was far too easy, she decided. It should probably be illegal: most things that afforded this much fun usually were.

"Eurgh!" Ron said, scooting as far away as the branch would allow.

"Oh come on, Weasley, it's not going to eat your face."

Ron stared at the cigarette as thought it would, indeed, eat his face if he let it come any closer. "You don't know that!" he protested, edging further away. "Dad says those'll _kill_ you!"

Pansy let out a short bark of laughter. "Oh for… I thought you were a Gryffindor, Weasley. Laugh in the face of danger, You-Know-Who can eat my dung, all that lot? You're afraid of a little smoking stick?"

Ron purpled. Yes, Pansy thought, _far_ too easy.

"Fine," he said, taking the cigarette from her gingerly. "Fine."

He held it between his thumb and forefinger, still looking at it as though it might explode any second. He closed his eyes and brought it to his lips, scrunching his face up at the last second, and inhaled too deeply, sputtering and coughing as smoke came out his nostrils. Pansy laughed, and plucked the cigarette from his fingers, putting it back between her lips.

"Good show, Weasley!" she chirped, still grinning sadistically. "Really bit the bullet, there." Ron was still coughing, and she smiled merrily and took another drag, blowing the smoke up into the air.

"What the hell _are_ those things," Ron managed to choke out, awkwardly trying to pound himself on the back. "I think I _am_ dying!" Pansy laughed again, and Ron looked at her incredulously. "This was all a plot to kill me!" He burst out, before falling into another hacking fit.

"Oh _honestly_, Weasley, if I actually _wanted_ to kill you, I'd be much more subtle about it."

Ron looked at her incredulously, eyes still watering. "You? _Subtle_?"

She sneered at him. "I _am_ a Slytherin, you know. Subtle, cunning, and ambitious is my calling."

"You're about as subtle as Goyle's left bicep!"

Pansy sniffed. "I'll have you know Gregory is _very_ subtle. Nearly a genius, even."

"…_Goyle_?"

"You've never heard him speak, have you? That's because he reserves all his witticisms for sitting around the common room fire during our nightly philosophical chats, during which he makes bitter and cutting remarks about the whole of Gryffindor house."

Ron looked at her like she was mad. "You're a bloody liar!"

"Oh, all right, you've caught me—he's so thick that we're not sure if he even _can_ speak." At this, she chuckled, and beside her, Ron laughed heartily, his blue eyes twinkling. "One time," she continued, still giggling, "Draco and I came into the common room, and he and Vincent were sitting at the sofa with this piece of parchment and a quill, and they stowed it away when Draco asked what it was, but…" she leaned in conspiratorially, hair falling across her face, and continued, "we think Vincent was trying to teach him to spell his name!"

Ron burst out laughing again, leaning back against a conveniently-placed branch, and slipped, falling off. Pansy shrieked, reaching out to grab his arm, and he managed to grab onto the branch, dangling awkwardly for a moment before scrabbling to pull himself up onto a lower branch.

"Whoops," he said shakily, straddling the branch. "I'm err… I'm a bit dizzy."

"Cigarettes. I forgot they do that when you're not used to it…" She looked worried for a moment, before shrugging it off, a frown settling on her face.

He looked up at her quizzically. "What?"

"Nothing." She stubbed the cigarette out on the trunk of the tree, sliding off her branch and beginning down the tree.

"Where are you _going_?" Ron asked, still holding onto the tree with a death grip.

"Away," she called up, still climbing down rapidly. "This conversation never happened, Weasley." She hung off a low branch before dropping the last ten feet to the ground gracefully, looking up at him once more before brushing a stray pine needle off her shirt and running away, back towards the castle.

Ron made an annoyed, frustrated noise, and edged closer to the trunk of the tree, holding on to it until the horizon re-focused.

"Maybe she really _is_ trying to kill me," he muttered, giving an owl perched several branches away a dirty look, and beginning to make his way down the tree.


End file.
